


The rooster's crowing in the middle of the night

by 100demons



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Series, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:25:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what he remembers: the sweet milky taste of tea in his mouth, sugar not quite covering the sharp tannic aftertaste; the waxed linoleum floor squeaking against his shoes; the bright fluorescent light, leaving purple haloes in its wake. </p><p>Akashi’s eyes, feverish bright and blazing in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The rooster's crowing in the middle of the night

_The rooster's crowing_  
 _In the middle of the night_  
 _Deceived the hearers;_  
 _But at Osaka's gateway_  
 _The guards are never fooled._

[Lady Sei Shonogan](http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/hyakunin/images/onna62.jpg)

 

* * *

 

 

This is what he remembers: the sweet milky taste of tea in his mouth, sugar not quite covering the sharp tannic aftertaste; the waxed linoleum floor squeaking against his shoes; the bright fluorescent light, leaving purple haloes in its wake.

Akashi’s eyes, feverish bright and blazing in his face.

“Nijimura-senpai,” he smiles, revealing rows of straight white teeth. “It's been a while.”

 

* * *

 

“Let me guess, everyone thought it was cancer?”

“We wouldn’t be so rude as to speculate,” Akashi shrugs, swirling the cup of tea in his hand with a careless twist of his wrist. The tip of his wrist bone juts out sharply from the edge of his perfectly tailored sleeve, creamy white against grey silk.

“Yeah, ok,” Nijimura grins, cracking open a pair of wooden chopsticks. “Either that or tuberculosis, right? Like out of some fucking drama.”

Akashi doesn’t answer, instead giving him a blank stare, only just a hint of a curve lurking in the corner of his mouth.

“Sickle cell anemia,” Nijimura answers, mouth stuffed full of misshapen rice balls.

“It must be hard,” Akashi murmurs softly.

Nijimura shrugs. “It is what it is,” he says, once he’s finished chewing and swallowing. “Dad’s been in and out of the hospital for transfusions and a boatload of drugs ever since I was little.” The rice is cold, tasting too much of vinegar and salt.

“Funny meeting you here though.”

Akashi sips at his shitty tea, making even the five yen vending machine crap look and smell good. Nijimura kind of wishes he had a little more money to get him something nicer, but the limits of his generosity only stretch so far.

“I was in the area,” Akashi says a little vaguely.

He should be a better senpai.

“Yeah,” Nijimura says, chewing on the end of his chopstick, teeth leaving jagged marks on the thin, brittle wood. “Tokyo University Hospital’s a nice area to hang around in.”

They sit in silence for a few moments while Nijimura pushes around the last few bites of his bento box, warmth seeping from his legs into the cold metal seat. In the background, the dull hum of a thousand voices hums in his ears, the quiet song of a bustling hospital, punctuated by the staticky quiver of announcements ringing out on the overhead mic.

“I was here to meet my father,” Akashi says, his eyes not quite meeting Nijimura’s.

“He works here?”

Akashi’s mouth twists into something sharp. “In a manner of speaking. He’s on the Board of Trustees.”

“Huh.” Nijimura chews absently on the rim of his Pocari bottle. “That’s a pretty prestigious position.”

“It comes with its privileges.” Akashi puts down his cup for the first time, dabbing at his mouth with a starched white handkerchief, embroidered with his initials in English. They look like little curlicues of dried blood clinging to the edges.

“To be entirely honest with you, senpai, our meeting today isn’t exactly an accident.”

“Oh?”

Akashi leans forward, setting his elbows on the table, just inches away from Nijimura’s remains of his devoured lunch. “I understand your father’s illness has worsened recently.”

“Has it?” Nijimura capped his energy drink. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I have access to biomedical technologies that have made immense advancements in the field of hematological research, especially concerning the morphology of erythrocytes, care of my father. He likes to keep tabs on the latest patents. There are miracles happening in tiny little test tubes in Japan, senpai. In ten years they’ll revolutionize the way we think about anemia forever.” Akashi’s breath comes too quick and too fast, pink spots forming high on his cheeks. Strangely, one eye seems a little more discolored than the other, as if the red is slowly being leeched away, leaving nothing but a pale, yellowed iris in its wake.

“Why are you telling me this, Seijuuro?”

“I can fix your father,” Akashi smiles.

He should have been a better senpai.

“No, you can’t,” Nijimura says, leaning back in his chair as much as the hard metal backing will allow him, welcoming the edges of steel digging into the soft flesh of his back. “You can’t, Seijuuro.”

“You don’t understand, I can help you play basketball again--”

Nijimura cuts him off a wave of his hand. “Stop it. Stop.”

Akashi mouth turns into a harsh flat line, his face instantly becoming stone. “I apologize if I’ve overstepped my boundaries, senpai.”

“Say that to me again when you really mean it,” Nijimura says, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “Otherwise, save your breath.”

“Senpai--”

“You can’t just fix my problems with just a wave of your magic wand.” He opens his eyes, the lines of Akashi’s face a little blurred and fuzzy for a brief second, before they resolve into disappointed and unhappy wrinkles. “You can’t just walk into my life and fix my Dad and make my life instantly better. It doesn’t work like that.”

“But I _can_.”

“Can you?” Nijimura flicks the outside of his bottle of Pocari, listening to the satisfying hollow thunk. “You think that me and my Mom haven’t been praying and hoping for Dad to get better, all these years? I gave up basketball so I can pick up my brothers from school instead of having them wait in some damn day care center, I took on a part-time job to help pay the bills so Mom doesn’t have to work so many hours, I buy a copy of the old fart magazine that my Dad likes and read it aloud to him while he naps because he says it makes him feel better.”

Nijimura looks at the little boy sitting across him at the table, clad in a suit modeled after American business attire, fitted for a slender child of fifteen. “This is my life,” he says quietly. “And I deal with it on my terms, Akashi. I don’t need nor want you to come in and save me from it.”

“You were the _best_.”

“I was,” Nijimura agrees, looking down at his worn asics gelhoops that are too tight in the toe and dingy grey after countless washes. He looks up and meets Akashi squarely in the eye.

“But I’ve got a different life now.”

 

* * *

 

 

This is what he leaves behind:

A mostly empty bento box, a half-full bottle of Pocari, crumpled napkins littering a hard metal table, two paper cups of milk tea. One creamy white envelope, bearing his name and the crown of an Emperor.


End file.
